‘Working for children makes me feel complete’

BATANGAS — “Working for children makes me feel complete,” so says Jessica, 29, who works for World Vision.

Jessica, who has been with World Vision since 2022, serves as one of the program officer in a community in Batangas, where 2,100 children are assisted by World Vision through its various programs concerning education, livelihood, and community engagement among others. As a program officer, it is Jessica’s job to attend to the needs of the children in the community, and to give assistance to then extended from donors, sponsors, and benefactors.

Since working for World Vision, Jessica has seen a change in the children. She says, “One of the things that I saw in our youth here is that they are more open in talking about issues concerning their community, where they themselves attend to it.”

However, not all comes easy in the job, Jessica admits. The community that Jessica serves is near the Taal Volcano, one of the Philippines’ most active volcanoes. She says that every time an activity occurs, the community suffers.

“Whenever volcanic smog appears, everything is affected whether your personal health or the whole of the community. What’s hard is that we cannot predict when there’s a volcano activity, so every this occurs on the day we have a scheduled activity, we must temporarily put it to a stop to evacuate everyone to safety,” Jessica shares.

Still, there’s always hope despite the challenges the job faces, Jessica adds.

‘What’s really heartwarming about what I do is that I get to see the impact that it does to the community, which is most evident in the smiles from the children, the community volunteers and our local partners,” she says. “Every time we conduct an activity or they receive something from us, it’s their smiles that I receive from them that I will never forget.”

And one can attest to Jessica’s testament is from four-year-old Ezra Marie, who has this big dream that she wants to achieve: “I want to become a doctor soon!”